Villa Frisching and Kocher Park

About the building

From the Kocher Park you look up at a pale villa with a mansard roof, a balustrade and a coat of arms in its pediment. It is one of the earliest neo-Baroque villas in Bern and one of the few large houses in the Villette district to have survived the building boom since the 1960s.

Its core is a classicist country house built around 1828 for Gabriel Friedrich von Frisching-Mutach, a president of the city administration; the University of Bern speaks of origins in the 1830s. In 1880 Gabriel Rudolf Karl von Frisching, a banker and Swiss consul in Frankfurt am Main, had the single-storey house raised by half a storey, extended to the west and its facades redesigned. Who planned the conversion is not clear: the building inventory attributes it to Louis-Frédéric de Rutté, while the university names the building firm E. Müller.

The south front has five bays and a two-storey central section with round arches below and rectangular windows and Ionic pilasters above. A segmental pediment with the Frisching coat of arms and a balustrade crown it, with a cast-iron balcony in front. On the north side, a cast-iron and glass canopy shelters the entrance.

In 1909 the surgeon and Nobel laureate Theodor Kocher bought the estate; according to the building inventory it served as a guest house until 1919. From 1915 to 1932 it housed the Turkish legation, and from 1932 to 1985 the Romanian embassy. In 1941 Albert Kocher left the land to the Burgergemeinde on condition that a public park be created; the Kocher Park, with a bust of Theodor Kocher by Max Fueter, opened in 1944. After a conversion in 1986/87 by Beat Jordi, the villa became the University House, run by a foundation for events and exchange across disciplines. A detail to look for from the park: the curved terrace in front of the south facade.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Schlösslistrasse 5 · Universität Bern: University House · Open House Bern: Haus der Universität Bern · Wikipedia (de): Kocherpark · Wikidata: Villa Frisching mit Kocherpark (Q136327922)